Steven Kostanski directs Leprechaun Returns, a sequel to the original

This is some unexpectedly awesome news to receive on this St. Patrick's Day. While a marathon of the LEPRECHAUN movies plays out on Syfy, the network has announced that they are producing a direct sequel to the original 1993 film, with a cool creative team behind it.

This sequel is titled LEPRECHAUN RETURNS, and it's being directed by Astron-6 member Steven Kostanski, whose film THE VOID (which he co-directed with fellow Astron-6 member Jeremy Gillespie) has been getting positive reactions (our own Eric Walkuski gave it a 7/10 review), from a screenplay written by Suzanne Keilly. Keilly wrote the season 2 episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead that was called Ashy Slashy, in which a seemingly brainwashed Ash stalks his companions through the halls of a mental hospital.

And what is the leprechaun getting up to this time? He'll be chasing around sorority girls. This just gets better and better.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS picks up

25 years after the events of the 1993 original, which found a maniacal leprechaun doing whatever it takes (including committing gruesome murder) to track down his stolen pot of gold. The leprechaun menaced Tory Redding (Jennifer Aniston) until he was finally defeated by shooting a four-leaf clover down his throat. LEPRECHAUN RETURNS finds the leprechaun revived in the modern day when a group of sorority girls unwittingly awaken him while tearing down a cabin to build a new sorority house.

Mark Holton will be reprising the role of Ozzie from the '93 film and is joined in the cast by Taylor Spreitler as Lila, Pepi Sonuga as Katie, Sai Bennett as Rose, Emily Reid as Meredith, Oliver Llewellyn-Jenkins as Matt, and Ben McGregor as Andy.

Here's the one unfortunate thing about LEPRECHAUN RETURNS: Warwick Davis is not back to play the leprechaun, a character he played not only in the '93 film but also five sequels - LEPRECHAUN 2, LEPRECHAUN 3, LEPRECHAUN 4: IN SPACE, LEPRECHAUN IN THE HOOD, and LEPRECHAUN: BACK 2 THA HOOD. Taking over the role this time around is a young Canadian actor named Linden Porco.

You can get a preview of Porco's take on the leprechaun in the teaser below, and it's not bad at all. I can go along with that, and I'm thankful we're getting a familiar version of the leprechaun this time instead of whatever the hell that thing was in the now-ignored reboot LEPRECHAUN ORIGINS.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS will premiere on Syfy in March 2019, just in time for next St. Patrick's Day.